What would it take to protect Wilderness?

Wilderness is a vital element of our natural and cultural heritage. It provides important economic, social and environmental benefits to societies, and performs many functions more effectively than human-dominated landscapes. However a recent study shares alarming data on the decline of global Wilderness, and how our efforts to protect Wilderness cannot keep up.

Wilderness is declining faster than we are protecting it

The study, by Watson et al., highlights the current distribution of global Wilderness, and its decline in the last two decades. 23.2% of the world’s land remains as Wilderness. This is mostly in North America, Asia, Africa and Australia – very little remains in Europe. However we have lost almost 10% of global Wilderness in the last two decades! There has been a lack of global recognition of Wilderness, and this has led to lagging efforts to protect it. For example in the past two decades, 2.5 million km² of Wilderness has been newly protected, but in the same period of time we have lost 3.3 million km² of Wilderness.

Conserving biodiversity, especially large herbivores, top predators and scavenger communities

Protecting essential ecosystem services

Connecting landscapes

Capturing and storing carbon dioxide

Building scientific knowledge and understanding of natural processes

Inspiring people

Wilderness provides us with health, inspiration, peace, connection, solace, adventure, and it is our responsibility to protect it!

What would it take to protect Wilderness?

Ultimately, to protect Wilderness, we require changes to global policy. This stems back to national level, then local level, and begins with the public. That means YOU! You can support an NGO, for example our work, and advocate for the protection of wild spaces. The European Wilderness Society continues its mission to identify, designate, steward and promote Europe’s remaining Wilderness. Our work is only possible with your support. We thank you for your readership, and encourage you to continue supporting Wilderness. Together we can protect Wilderness!

Acceptance of any contribution, gift or grant is at the discretion of the European Wilderness Society. The European Wilderness Society will not accept any gift unless it can be used or expended consistently with the purpose and mission of the nonprofit non-government European Wilderness Society.

No irrevocable gift, whether outright or life-income in character, will be accepted if under any reasonable set of circumstances the gift would jeopardize the donor’s financial security.

The European Wilderness Society will refrain from providing advice about the tax or other treatment of gifts and will encourage donors to seek guidance from their own professional advisers to assist them in the process of making their donation.

The European Wilderness Society will accept only donations in cash. Gifts of in-kind services will be accepted at the discretion of the European Wilderness Society.

The European Wilderness Society will provide acknowledgments to donors meeting tax requirements for property received by the charity as a gift. However, except for gifts of cash and publicly traded securities, no value shall be ascribed to any receipt or other form of substantiation of a gift received by European Wilderness Society.

The European Wilderness Society will respect the intent of the donor relating to gifts for restricted purposes and those relating to the desire to remain anonymous. With respect to anonymous gifts, the European Wilderness Society will restrict information about the donor to only those staff members with a need to know.

The European Wilderness Society will not compensate, whether through commissions, finders' fees, or other means, any third party for directing a gift or a donor to the European Wilderness Society.

The European Wilderness Society is registered in Austria as a non-profit public society.

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